Why Is The Cold War Wrong?

The Cold War was borne out of two fundamentally different forms of governing a society: capitalism and communism. Opposing ideas have never been clearer in history then when looking at the capitalist United States and communist Russia immediately after World War II. Who is to say that free enterprise is wrong? Who is to say that all people working toward the common good is wrong? Sadly, strong opinion coupled with intense fear on both sides could have been disastrous for mankind. While the Cold War was labeled a “war,” it was not a war in the conventional sense, as the United States and Russian militaries never met face to face on a battleground. It was a war over power. Who had more allies? Who had superior weaponry? Who had the mightier military? The United States detonated the very first atomic bomb in 1945. Mere years later, the Russians had developed nuclear weaponry and detonated their own bomb. The United States then developed and detonated something much more powerful than a nuclear bomb: the hydrogen bomb. Within one year, the Russians had done the same. Each country now had the capacity to absolutely devastate the other.
Russia had been invaded in both World Wars and the country’s leader, Joseph Stalin, did not want history to repeat itself. Russia took control of surrounding countries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania to ensure enough space between itself and the west. The United States government wanted free elections held in those countries, while Russia wanted to install its own governments and to ensure that Germany would never rise to power again. From 1948 to 1951, the United States spent over $12 billion in what was known as the “Marshall Plan” to help Europe rebuild itself after the devastation that was WWII. Russia believed it was simply a trick to lure away its satellite